Dream-Seeking in the Sacred Land: The Creative Practice of Ma Da's Printmaking Art during the Yan'an Period

Based on the literary and artistic context of Yan'an in the 40s of the 20th century, this paper focuses on the nationalization of Ma Da printmaking art, and discusses how it can realize the combination of Marxist literary and artistic theory and excellent traditional Chinese culture with the "creative transformation of folk art and traditional painting resources" as the core. It is found that through the modern translation of the single-line shape of paper-cutting in northern Shaanxi, the symbolic empowerment of the plane composition of the New Year paintings, the activation of the vigorous charm of the Han Dynasty portrait stone, and the integration of line modeling, the layout of "treating white as black", and the combination of poetry and painting in traditional Chinese painting, Ma Da has constructed a creative paradigm of "folkization of form, daily subject matter, and politicization of function". In terms of technique, he broke through the Europeanized three-dimensional modeling, turning to flat single lines and symbolic black and white; In terms of schema, the narrative of daily labor is reconstructed with scattered layouts; In terms of cultural connotation, the unity of traditional practical rationality and revolutionary instrumental rationality should be realized. The practice of the Ma Da provides a model of "creative transformation of traditional resources" for modern Chinese printmaking, and has methodological enlightenment for literary and artistic creation in the new era.